Video of officer-involved shooting elicits anger in Salinas

SALINAS &GT;&GT; Alisal residents reacted angrily on Tuesday after the second fatal shooting of a resident by Salinas police in 11 days.

In what was the third deadly police shooting this year, officers shot a man wielding hedge trimmers in a commercial area on Del Monte Avenue near Sanborn Road. The event was captured on video and widely viewed via social media, where a number of critical comments of the police were also made.

Later Tuesday, residents reacted angrily to the day's events during a regularly scheduled City Council meeting.

Police said they received an emergency call just after noon from a distressed woman inside a residence on Elkington and Del Monte avenues who said the man was trying to kill her dog and had exposed himself and then tried to force his way into her house.

"Officers found the man walking down the street with gardening shears in his hand," said Salinas police Cmdr. Vince Maiorana, who said the man did not respond to them and was acting strangely.

"Officers end up talking to this individual, trying to find out what he's doing and what the situation was based upon the original 911 call," Maiorana said. "This individual started to wave the gardening shears at the officers. We tried to deploy a Taser; the Taser did not work and as the officers tried to detain this individual, this individual pulled the gardening shears and actually attacked the officers with the gardening shears.

"In response, the officers, fearing for their personal safety, shot this individual and he is now deceased."

Maiorana urged first-hand witnesses to call the department "regardless of what opinion they have."

He said that after his department conducts its own investigation, the District Attorney's office will undertake its own investigation and will be "the ultimate deciding authority."

Following public outcry about this month's shooting of Osman Hernandez, who was waving a lettuce-cutting knife outside Mi Pueblo Market on East Alisal Street, Maiorana also urged the public this week not to "jump to conclusions if you weren't there."

He wasn't counting on a video of the shooting going viral before the crime scene was even shut down.

Angry onlookers at the scene were already watching a cellphone video posted on Facebook by 19-year-old Yoanna Prieto. The post included an apology for her profane language as she screamed at police after they shot the man, who has not been identified.

Prieto said police approached her after she recorded the shaky images punctuated by her and her mother's screams.

She gave a copy of the recording to the officers before posting it on her Facebook page, she said.

In Prieto's original high-resolution version of the video, the man is seen carrying a satchel of some sort in his left hand and the shears in his right. At one point as police confront him in a slow foot pursuit on Del Monte Avenue, he appears to be holding the shears in his right hand and pointing them upward. The officers are heard shouting, "Drop it!"

As one officer comes closer, the man can be seen turning around. In an instant, four shots are fired.

Maiorana said both officers fired at the man.

"There's some split-second decisions that have to be made by the officer," he said. "When the officer commanded this individual to drop the shears and to get down on the ground, this individual actually attacked the officer with the gardening shears."

Maiorana said investigators obtained video of the shooting, but didn't say what the source was.

The man, he said, "actually went at the officers, from what we can see on the video, with the gardening shears."

Some witnesses, as well as some viewers of the video, disagreed with that assertion.

The man didn't go at the officers, Prieto said, adding he appeared to be backing away from police the entire time.

Police Chief Kelly McMillin made a brief statement during a break at Tuesday night's City Council meeting, which was overflowing with residents upset about the shootings.

"I understand there's a lot of emotions and a lot of legitimate concerns," he said. "We're working hard to gather the facts, and when we have the facts, we will present them."

As a growing crowd hurled insults at police watching over the crime scene in the late afternoon, Prieto was at home with a friend, Bree Arias.

Arias said she is studying for a law enforcement career at Hartnell College, but now she's having second thoughts.

After the day's traumatic events, she said she wasn't sure she wanted to attend her 5:30 class Tuesday night. The subject was "shootings and arrests."